NEWS - Myanmar's opposition party r

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Subject: NEWS - Myanmar's opposition party renews attack on dissident members

Myanmar's opposition party renews attack on dissident members
May 7, 1999 By Associated Press
Web posted at: 5:43 AM EDT (0943 GMT)


YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Myanmar's opposition renewed its attack on three
renegade members accused of working with the military government in an
attempt to split the party, its executive committee said on Friday.

The three renegade members of Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu
Kyi's
National League for Democracy were among those elected to parliament in
1990. The military refused to honor the election, in which the NLD won a
landslide victory, and never allowed the parliament to convene.

The three, Than Tun, Kyi Win and Tin Tun, obtained the signatures of 24
other NLD lawmakers on a letter calling for Suu Kyi and other party
leaders
to reconsider strategies they said led to conflict with the military
government, including the NLD's attempt to convene the parliament last
year.

The lawmakers who signed the document were in military detention at the
time, diplomats in Yangon have said.

The military has ruled Myanmar, also known as Burma, since 1962. It
placed
Suu Kyi under house arrest from 1989-95 for her role in leading the
opposition, which is seeking to restore democracy.

In a statement directed at the three renegades, the NLD's 10-member
central
executive committee, which includes Suu Kyi, said:

"You have collaborated with the military intelligence for your own
personal
interest and betrayed the electorate by attempting to destroy the
implementation of parliament."

Than Tun was expelled from the party last year after the leadership
accused
him of attempting to engineer a split in its ranks.

Frustrated by the government's refusal to allow parliament to convene or
to
open a dialogue with Suu Kyi and other top NLD leaders, the NLD
attempted to
convene parliament on its own in September.

The military responded by detaining all elected lawmakers and nearly
1,000
party members. Many have been released, but the NLD says about 80
lawmakers
are still held.

The renegade NLD members called on the party leaders to reconsider their
call to convene parliament and to seek new strategies to initiate a
dialogue
with the military.

The NLD has put no conditions on a dialogue except that it must choose
its
own representatives to negotiate.

Attempts by the military to negotiate with lower-level party members
have
been quashed by the leadership, which insists that Suu Kyi, the most
popular
member of the party with the public, participate.

Copyright 1999 The Associated Press.